Gower’s Drug Store, the neighborhood pharmacy in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” didn’t fare well in George Bailey’s nightmarish alternate vision of his town’s future. Unfortunately, real-life pharmacies like it are suffering similar fates today, thanks in part to miserly insurance industry practices that would have made Old Man Potter proud. In the past five years, nearly 10% of the community pharmacies in Virginia have gone out of business, according to a new report from the commonwealth’s Joint Commission on Health Care, leaving 22 localities with only one or no independent pharmacies. Six have been without any pharmacy — independent or part of a chain — in the past decade. In...
